Gravitas Blog

Five or six years ago we had the chance to design a beautiful rammed earth home for the foothills of Boise north of 24^th Street. We went through an extensive design process with the client and developed a final design that you can see here (Rammed Earth Example). Early in the design development phase we had a weekend design charette with Todd Jersey. Todd came to Boise and presented the client and our design team some examples of his work and passed on some of his experience with rammed earth.

Gravitas Rammed Earth Designs

If you are unfamiliar with rammed earth, it is one of the world’s most common building materials.  Calling rammed earth alternative is somewhat relative then, it is alternative to the norm in our area, lets say that. The method of construction works by compacting earth within a temporary form to create a solid earth wall. Sands and soils from the site and surrounding areas are laid in a form work similar to concrete forms and mixed with a small amount of Portland cement and compacted. Each layer is applied 4”-6” at a time so you end up with beautiful striations as you work your way up to a full height wall. The embodied energy of rammed earth is quite minimal compared to many types of construction in that the majority of the materials for the home are from the site, or from very close by the site. For this foothills home we explored other sources in the valley for soils with unique colors to add to the striated effect of the finished wall.

Example from Ace Waterproofing

Example from Tangle Foot Master Builders

Unfortunately the project is on hold for the time being but in the mean time the owner, Paul Lamon has been educating himself and working on some rammed earth projects in Arizona. Paul is now the local expert on rammed earth and you can learn more about what he is doing and more about rammed earth on his site. http://www.idahoearthbuilders.com

We are still hopeful that this or a similar rammed earth project with Paul will continue someday and we can work together on one of Boise’s first rammed earth homes. We know of a rammed earth garden wall that was built in another part of the foothills that might be featured in a later edition of the Contemporary Homes blog, but If you know of any other rammed earth homes in Idaho or the Treasure Valley area let us know and we can add some images.

Here are a few homes located in Boise’s North end built by Hale Development of Boise, Idaho.

This first one uses common materials with traditional massing.  I always wonder why home owners let the dish companies stick their ugly billboards onto the front of their home.  As long as you have a view of the sky that’s necessary, they should put it in the ground on a pole, at no additional charge.  Otherwise, it’s a quick way to deface your home.

Hale did a pretty good job of adding to the neighborhood, but not straying from the “fabric” of the surrounding homes.

This home, also by Hale Development, is located off of 8th Street, in the North end, built in 2003 I believe.

-Mark Wagner

Boise may be popular in the financial, and lifestyle magazines, but in regards to contemporary architecture, we are not trendsetters. While I greatly admire a lot of what the city has done, moving the ball forward in regards to design has not been a priority. This is a conservative city, and it is definitely a conservative state.

That’s not to say that some of the solid, safe work is not without its merits.  Boise has some truly solid examples of various styles, as any city of its size and history usually does. Contemporary design may not come to mind when thinking of Boise, but we do in fact have some respectable works lurking in our midst. What I would like to do in this series of blogs is to explore some of Boise’s best examples of Contemporary Design, and learn about who and how they were created.

While being in the architectural field, I am in no way an architectural critic. I will lend my opinion to some of what I see, but this will be more informative than expiscatory. What I would like to do is to look at what examples we have in our midst, and find out who created them, who lives in them, what their back story is, etcetera. We have much to learn about from the people around us.

I will pick some of the low hanging fruit out there.  In 1993 my wife and I purchased a 1 acre parcel of land in Boise’s Highlands area.  It was a steep lot, with only moderate views of the ski hill to the north.  My wife is an interior designer, co-owner of seed interiors, and I design custom homes for clients throughout the country.  Designing our home together was a natural thing for us to do.

The Highland’s subdivision grew up around it in the 1970′s and 80′s, leaving this little parcel behind.  It was difficult to build on, and the homes around it were the typical suburban solutions, ie, flat lots created by using compacted fill.  This style didn’t really appeal to us, but what we did find in the neighborhood was a willingness to try something different, hidden amongst the usual fare.  Some of the examples were mid-century imitations, and the typical ranch homes.  A few interesting examples, but all relatively conservative.

There is a 50 foot drop from the curbside, to the lowest point at the back of the lot 150 feet away.  To make a manageable building pad using  compacted fill would be extra ordinarily expensive, as well as a bit of an eyesore.  Because of these constraints, the lot went undeveloped.  When my wife chanced upon it for sale, we looked up the information, and found out it was an “illegal remnant lot”.  It was part of the city, but never platted.  We snatched it up, and converted the 1 acre parcel into a .6 acre one, and a .4 acre one to the east.  We sold that smaller portion, and used the proceeds to fund our home.

Both of our aesthetics tend toward a simple, livable modern.  Contemporary architecture can feel a little cold, and we had just adopted a little girl into our family, and wanted it to be warm, and inviting.  Not limiting ourselves to the typical housing styles in the neighborhood also allowed us to respond to our site much more easily.  Instead of forcing the site to conform to our home, we let the home spill down the lot, working with the drop in elevation.

We ended up with an upside-down home, where we park and enter in the upper level, and three of the four bedrooms are on the lower level.  We had the idea that we wanted to build a 2400 SF home, but because of the layout of the upper level, and the foundation system that was developed to accommodate it, we ended up with a little over 3000 square feet.  A bit more than we want, but it would have been more problematic to not enclose the space.

One of the organizing features we used, was the section.  We wanted to be able to use Boise’s cooler evenings in the summer to expel the warm air in the house, and bring in the cool.  We have operable clearstory windows at the highest point on the house.  After we open these up, and the windows in the lower level, we have about 25 feet of differential from top to bottom.  This creates a nice little breeze.  Our prevailing wind pattern is also from the North West, which is over the valley.  By opening these windows, we get the natural breezes in the evenings as well.

Below are a few photographs of the interior, and one of the exterior.  I will be posting Blog entries highlighting our construction process, and exploring what we learned along the way.  There are many more facets to this house that I would like to share, so check back often.

-Mark Wagner

This resource is a collection of our Plans of the Month.  At Gravitas, our plans have been developed for individual people with unique design requirements.  We have designed from the Eastern Seaboard, to the Olympic Peninsula, and points in between.

What this section is intended to do, is to highlight individual "plan book" projects, helping to showcase our capabilities, as well as providing a talking point with you.  So print these, take out some tracing paper, and start modifying our plans to suite your life.  Don’t suite your life to fit a pre-designed stock plan.

Below is a list of plans, in order of the livable area.  We will be constantly adding content regarding these plans.  So check back often.

Click on the plan name to jump to its downloadable .pdf

Plan Name	Total Living Area
The Shasta Cabins	460-698 SF
The Sabine	939 SF
The Oswego -Blog Post	1,021 SF
The Eagle’s Nest	1,173 SF
The Malheur	1,216 SF
The Cache B	1,243 SF
The Quinn	1,394 SF
The Willow	1,427 SF
The Greylin	1,648 SF
The Mackenzie	2,112 SF
The Gallatin -Blog Post	2,190 SF
The Winooski	2,296 SF
The Fraser -Blog Post	2,306 SF
The Bruneau	2,356 SF
The Ashley	2,390 SF
The Dearborn	2,559 SF
The Ranch Suites	2,620 SF
The Carson	2,775 SF
The Gunnison	2,987 SF
The Tioga	2,988 SF
The Kootenai	3,012 SF
The Roanoke	3,125 SF
The Sages -Blog Post	3,130 SF
The Fabius	3,280 SF	—No Image—
The Stillwater	3,556 SF
The North Fork	3,678
The Madison -Blog Post	3,760 SF
The Park City	3,831 SF
The Long Valley	3,867 SF
The Salinas	4,244 SF
The Ventura	4,404 SF
The Escalante -Blog Post	4,514 SF
The Lamar	4,675 SF
The St. Francis	5,324 SF
The Rivanna	5,604 SF
The Seneca	5,627 SF
The Rockaway	7,796 SF
The Bear Creek	7,819 SF

The Sages is one of our most popular plans to start sketching from.  It has many unique design elements, that lend themselves to living, entertaining, and enjoying the natural beauty of its surroundings.  This plan was honored by the 2007 Timber Home Living Floor Plan contest with a top floor plan nomination.  The variation rendered above is approximately 3,130 square feet on two levels.

Click on the image to download a .pdf study plan set

Below are some construction photos of a version of this home going up in Wyoming.  It’s a timber frame design with SIPs walls and roof.  It should be completed later on this fall.